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SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE: 

HIS 


PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 






THE RELATION 


OF 

PHILOSOPHY TO THEOLOGY, 

AND OF 

THEOLOGY TO RELIGION. 


REPRINTED FROM 

“ THE ECLECTIC REVIEW,” JANUARY, 1851. 




anir (BxtnrM. 

1 oMr. 


nuumu auu tipau’uuty 


“ Our little systems have their day; 

They have their day, and cease to be : 

They are hut broken lights of Thee, 

And Thou, O Lord, art more than they.” 

In Memoriam. 



LONDON: 

WARD AND CO., 27, PATERNOSTER ROW. 

MDCCCLI. 




205449 

v’IS 


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'' * ■ 


JOHN CHILDS AND SON, BUNGAY. 


ADVERTISEMENT. 


This essay, which appeared in the January number of 
the Eclectic Review, under the title of “ Samuel Taylor 
Coleridge: his Philosophy and Theology,” has been cor¬ 
rected, and extended by the insertion of several passages, 
marked for extraction from the writings of that author, but 
omitted for want of space; and it is republished in a separate 
form in the hope of promoting more widely the knowledge 
of the value of Coleridge’s works, as a preliminary discipline 
to theological study. 

The works referred to in it are;— 

Aids to Reflection; 2 vols. 1848. 

The Friend; 3 vols. 1850. 

Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit; 1849. 

Biographia Liter aria; 2 vols. 1847. 

Literary Remains; 4 vols. 1836—1839. 

All published by Pickering; and the following published 
by Griffin:— 

General Introduction to the Fncyclopcedia Metropolitana ; 

or a Preliminary Treatise on Method. 

Two other works were contained in the list at the head 
of the Article, both published by Pickering;— 

Fssays on his own Times; 3 vols. and 
Notes and Lectures upon Shakspeare; 2 vols. 

And of these, which could not be referred to in connexion 
with the theme of the Article, a P. S. said :— 



IV 


ADVERTISEMENT. 


‘The “Notes and Lectures upon Shakspeare, and some 
of the old Poets and Dramatists,” is a republication, in a 
more commodious and cheaper form, of the substance of the 
first two volumes of Coleridge’s “ Literary Remains,” which 
have been long out of print. They will be welcomed by all 
who know the value of the criticisms and critical principles 
of our philosopher; and to all who desire to become ac¬ 
quainted with those glories of our national literature, we 
can heartily recommend them, as containing some of the 
very best helps that are to be found in our language. There 
are other “ literary remains ” included in these volumes, 
some of which have not before appeared in any collection 
of our author’s writings, which greatly increase their worth. 
The “ Essays on his own Times ” are a reprint of Coleridge’s 
contributions to political journals, commencing with the 
papers published in his own “ Watchman,” the story of 
which he has told with such effect in his “ Biographia Li- 
teraria.” They are said to form “a second series of the 
Friend,” and they are not unworthy of ranking with that 
work. But they have an independent value from their re¬ 
lation to the eventful period in which they were written. 
And, whether we agree with the. writer’s politics or not, 
now that the personal feelings which were associated with 
the movements of those days have died out, we can profit¬ 
ably avail ourselves of them as memoires pour servir, in con¬ 
structing, for our own satisfaction, some outline of the his¬ 
tory of the first fifteen years of this century. Added to this 
is the biographical interest they possess, for they afford as 
clear an explanation of the process of change which Cole¬ 
ridge’s political views underwent, as his other writings do 
respecting his religious opinions ; and for such a man, these 
“ Remains ” are the best and truest account of his life that 
could be given to the world.’ 

London, January, 1851. 


SAMUEL TAYLOE COLEEIDGE: 


HIS 

PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 


All human tilings are subject to one absolutely uni¬ 
versal law—that of change. Religion itself, the highest 
of the affairs of man, is not exempted from its opera¬ 
tion. There are various proofs that this is the fact; 
thus, in our personal religious experience we begin by 
trusting in Jesus as the Saviour of sinners, and thence 
advance to child-like confidence towards God in Him, 
and, beyond this, by Him attain to that state, which 
apostles have described as Christ living in us, the par¬ 
ticipation of the Divine nature, being children of God. 
The accuracy with which the “ Pilgrim’s Progress ” de¬ 
picts the soul’s life of a Christian, and the help which 
it has ever afforded to its development, would alone be 
sufficient to show that in this aspect religion is subject 
to change. The comparison of the manifestations of the 
religious life in different ages,—as, for example, that 
of patriarchs with that of prophets, and the psalmists’ 
with the apostles’,—conducts us to the same conclusion. 
But it is much more evident in the intellectual aspect 
of religion; and the whole history of doctrines is one 
continuous and incontrovertible proof of this extent of 
the reign of mutability. 



2 


SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE: 


For the want of attention to such considerations, the 
opinion has become widely prevalent, that Christianity, 
unlike all else that concerns man, is immutable. With 
many this opinion has sprung from the feeling that re¬ 
ligion has to do with eternal truths, and must there¬ 
fore, like them, be unchangeable. But with others the 
source is very different. All who have adopted as their 
formula of faith the creed or system of any Church or 
theologian of former days, are obliged to hold that, 
whatever modifications the expression of gospel truth 
may have been subject to before the date of their for¬ 
mula, it can know none after it. They are obliged to 
hold this, or else to renounce for their creed that which 
has most especially recommended it for their adoption. 
And they who have embraced the philosophy of the 
day as a religion, are also obliged to maintain the un¬ 
changeableness of Christianity, or they would not be 
able to boast of the superiority of their invention to it, 
in its fitness for men of the present age. 

This opinion widely prevails ; and meanwhile, on 
every side in society are indications of the imminence 
of a great change both in the intellectual and vital as¬ 
pects of the gospel, commencing, most probably, in the 
former, but assuredly extending to and terminating in 
the latter. Works of every variety of calibre, indigen¬ 
ous and imported, passionately proclaim it. The pre¬ 
mature and too confident triumph of those who “ seek 
after wisdom” over Christianity, and the timid con¬ 
servatism of those to whom the kingdom of God is 
more in word than in power, alike bespeak its approach. 
But a surer sign is the hopefulness which possesses 
those who, whether in years so or not, are young in 
heart, and which impels them to lay hold of every help 


HIS PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 


3 


that time brings for the nurture of the spiritual life within 
them; for disencumbering their faith of the traditional 
beliefs which have weighed upon it so heavily; for 
manifesting their knowledge and love of the truth in 
the clearest and eompletest manner ; and for expressing 
it in such a way as to lead both themselves and others 
onwards to a more full and satisfactory experience of 
all that is given to man in Jesus Christ. 

It is scarcely needful to say, that we heartily sympa¬ 
thize with them that thus strive and hope. And if 
what we have already said does not j ustify us, we make 
our appeal to those who hold by the past, in preference 
to the present or the coming aspects of the gospel. The 
most resolute in orthodoxy do not shape Christian truth 
into the same doctrines that they did whose names they 
use as watchwords; and if they employ the same terms, 
the explanations they give of their meaning are vastly 
different. Father Newman, in his “ Essay on Develop¬ 
ment,” has gone far beyond the canons and decrees of 
the Romish Church; and the evangelical views of Mr. 
Gorham are not those of the Puritan divines whose 
ground he professes to maintain. Nor is it possible for 
them to do otherwise. The world has moved on during 
these last three hundred years ; and it is with mankind 
as it is with individuals, who proceed from the first 
crude imaginings of childhood to the maturer, though 
still imperfect, opinions which beseem men of riper 
years; the cheerful docility of infancy is all that can 
or ought to be preserved. It would be as wise to insist 
that the Bible should never be printed, because it was 
originally preserved by writing alone; or that it should 
not be translated into modern languages, because first 
of all composed in Hebrew and Greek; as that the 
b 2 


4 


SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE: 


truths learned from it should never be expressed in 
other than the ancient forms. The Church of Rome 
itself, in allowing the printing of modern translations, 
has admitted what is, in effect, sufficient to overthrow 
her claim of infallibility in the embodiment of Christian 
truth in her creeds of former ages. 

**The worst enemies of the truth are those that oppose 
themselves to these changes; and they attempt impos¬ 
sibilities. Men must for ever up and on; and if hin¬ 
dered in attaining new and wider apprehensions and 
manifestations of truth, will attain new and fatal appre¬ 
hensions and manifestations of falsehood ; all the more 
fatal because mistaken for truth. The complaints ut¬ 
tered against the restlessness and mobility of young and 
active minds are really of no weight or value. If such 
minds move not, which will ? It was so at the Reform¬ 
ation, when one of the favourite declamations against 
the Reformers was grounded on the youth of their ad¬ 
herents. Nay, it was so when the gospel was first 
preached amongst men. Every morbid stupidity that 
is ridiculed or condemned in these, is a reflection on the 
wisdom and faithfulness of their elders. The part the 
elders should have taken was that of preparing for the 
change, and guiding, and even leading on to it. Or, 
supposing that so much as this was impossible, and that 
settled and habitual modes of looking at the great things 
concerned could not be so altered or modified as to lead 
to such labours; at least there should have been so 
much knowledge as to allow them to see, that what has 
proved in every way suitable and sufficient for them¬ 
selves, must not of necessity be suitable and sufficient 
for others belonging to a later and more advanced age. 
And when they complain that these aspirants condemn 


HIS PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 


5 


them retrospectively, they should not forget their own 
unfairer judgment, which has condemned beforehand 
that which is sought from the “treasures of wisdom 
and knowledge” hidden in Jesus Christ. ^ There is a 
grand word in Locke’s “Journal,” which they who 
ponder the characteristics of these times would do well 
to keep in mind :—“ It is a duty we owe to God, as the 
fountain and author of all truth, who is truth itself; 
and it is a duty also we owe our own selves, if we will 
deal candidly and sincerely with other souls, to have 
our minds constantly disposed to entertain and receive 
truth wheresoever we meet with it, or under whatever 
appearance of plain or ordinary, strange, new, or per¬ 
haps displeasing, it may come in our way.” This 
thought we commend to those of whom we speak, and 
address ourselves to the task before us. 

We call the attention of our readers to the works of 
our distinguished philosopher and poet, Samuel Taylor 
Coleridge, for the purpose of recommending the study 
of his writings to those who are desirous of obtaining a 
sure standing-place, whence they may look upon the 
religious controversies that are now proceeding, and 
discern whither they are tending; and whence, too, 
they may set forth, with some assurance of success, in 
the arduous and noble endeavour after genuine Chris¬ 
tian life and knowledge. This recommendation we 
wish especially to impress upon our younger readers, 
remembering how this study furnished to ourselves the 
means of gaining such a confidence in the gospel, that 
not only were we placed out of the reach of the old 
objections to it, but forefended also from the misery of 
feeling ourselves beset with difficulties unknown before, 
which we could not dispose of, and which would have 


6 


SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE: 


left us no alternative but to renounce what we heartily 
believed, or to hold by it in contradiction to the clearest 
conclusions of our understanding. Many beside our¬ 
selves ascribe to Coleridge such service as this; and 
most surely, at no time was it needed as at the present, 
/ when the truth is assailed with weapons, apparently 
from her own armoury, and by men whom we might 
well believe to be willing to die for her sake; and 
when she is defended in a manner that leaves us 
little ground for expecting her ultimate triumph, save 
the eternal life which she possesses as the offspring of 
Glod. 

But we must narrow our field, for it would be too 
large a task on this occasion to show the bearing of our 
author’s principles upon all the theological questions 
which are now under discussion ; and the position taken 
by him in respect of one at least, the connexion of the 
Church with the State, is such, that though Dissenters 
might find more in it than Churchmen to approve, they 
cannot agree with him respecting it. We shall confine 
our remarks, therefore, to the relation of Philosophy 
to Theology, which will include the Method, or Or¬ 
ganon , of theological inquiry, and the relation of The¬ 
ology to Religion; excluding specific notice of the 
sources of theological knowledge, of the doctrines of 
theology, and of all which is associated with ecclesias¬ 
tical matters. And we shall adopt this course, because 
in these subjects are involved most of the points of the 
greatest moment, respecting which definite and avail¬ 
able principles need now to be obtained. Something we 
must say of the questions themselves first, and then we 
shall endeavour to show what aid Coleridge can afford 
to an honest and intelligent inquirer. 


HIS PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 


7 


The question of the relation of Philosophy to The¬ 
ology appears to us to he the primary one of our clay, 
and, indeed, of every day; for according to the conclu¬ 
sion arrived at upon it, almost every other question is 
answered; and it is one upon which shallow and most 
unsafe opinions may be easily formed, and such as shall 
seem to be incontrovertible whilst they are utterly 
baseless. It must be remembered that this is a subject 
of a purely scientific character, for theology is truly a 
science, inasmuch as it is knowledge reduced to method 
and organic order, although that knowledge is of such 
a kind that the system constructed, in every case, must 
be in no small degree individual. A Christian man 
alone can apply scientific method to that knowledge 
which is the material of theology, for he alone possesses 
it; but any man of philosophical insight and education 
can teach the scientific method by which a theology can 
be formed, since it is only the method common to all 
sciences. Excepting those good simple souls, who mean 
nothing but the service of truth, though they often do 
it great disservice, who are not sufficiently cultivated 
to avoid the confusion of theology with religion, of the 
science with the knowledge which it methodizes ; the 
relation of philosophy to religion is denied only by such 
as will allow no philosophy to be true but their own, 
and by those who, not knowing exactly what their 
philosophy is, fear that, if they admit such a relation 
generally, their theology will not be able to stand its 
ground. And yet it is evident that, as a man’s philo¬ 
sophy is, so must his theology be; that is, a Christian 
man must needs “ interpret ” (as Lord Bacon says) the 
facts of his religious life by the help of those views and 
principles, whatever they may be, that form his philo- 


8 


SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE : 


sophy. We do not speak of theologies taken at second¬ 
hand from the works of professed divines, which may, 
or may not, represent a man’s own knowledge, but of 
that which, however defective or erroneous, he has 
consciously, or it may be even unconsciously, framed 
for himself, and which he has by him, not like a book 
upon a shelf, but like a thought in his mind, part of his 
very self. It cannot be doubted that a disciple of the 
school of Locke would construct a wonderfully different 
system of theology from one of the school of Hegel; 
and the outcry against the study of German philosophy, 
so common and so loud now in some quarters, is an 
acknowledgment of this fact. What is needed is the 
clear perception of the necessity of this relation; and 
that whatever system of theology any one may have 
formed, it necessarily involves the philosophical prin¬ 
ciples of its constructor, and without them could not 
have been. And when this is perceived, it will be 
seen of what moment it is that our philosophy should 
not ignore any of the great facts of human conscious¬ 
ness; nor grovel and maunder about sensations or 
suggestions, as if in them all the secret of the universe 
was hidden, while the lofty themes of spiritual know¬ 
ledge, and freedom and truth, invite its attention and 
research in vain. 

Systems of philosophy are for philosophers, but their 
influence spreads far and wide beyond this select band. 
As years roll on, the thoughts which sprang into being 
in the mind of the solitary thinker, nay, the very terms 
in which he embodied them, become the common pro¬ 
perty and market-language of human-kind. The phi¬ 
losophy of Hobbes, expounded by Locke and Paley, 
until very lately, when an opposite system began to 


Ills PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 


9 


make its influence felt, has given a peculiar character 
to the entire English mind, both here and in the New 
World; and Cooper could make his famous Leather¬ 
stocking speak of his idees, in a way that would have 
horrified both Plato and Aristotle, although it was 
with the exact signification assigned to the word by the 
sensational school. No attentive student of the history 
of the great French Revolution can fail to discern in it 
the influence of the same philosophy, as it was ex¬ 
pounded by Condillac. And now, both in the United 
States and in our own country, the thoughts and the 
terms which Kant, first of all in these later times, gave 
currency to, are beginning to show themselves in a 
similar manner. And it is thus that the philosophical 
spirit of an age is formed; and this, just as with the 
individual, determines the character of the theological 
systems that prevail. An illustration in proof, of a 
very remarkable character, is afforded us by the history 
of doctrines during the last two hundred years. The 
forms of belief that truly represented the religious life 
and knowledge of the sixteenth and seventeenth centu¬ 
ries, by degrees ceased to hold that relationship, and 
grew to be mere forms, animated by no living faith. 
During the hundred years that followed the Puritan 
Revolution, the philosophy which Locke taught spread 
in England, and, as a necessary consequence, appeared 
that cold and dreary Unitarianism which overran this 
country at the commencement of the last century. And 
then Whitefield and Wesley arose, and summoned back 
some spirit of life into the old doctrines, rekindling the 
piety which had almost expired with their fervent 
breath; but they were both men of their own age 
alone, and in neither dwelt the power which could 


10 


SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE*. 


shape, or bring on, the coming age; they held by the 
doctrines of the Reformation and the philosophy of 
Locke, welding, but not fusing, them into one by their 
mighty zeal. It could not but result from this that, 
when years had passed, and men of lesser mark in in¬ 
ward devoutness entered upon their labours, and know¬ 
ledge and arts had imparted their impulse to the world, 
the life should shrink from out the old forms again, 
and men should anxiously look about them for new 
forms by which to shield and nourish their faith. But 
now a new spirit of philosophy had arisen, not such as 
grew out of the teaching of Locke, a spiritual philo¬ 
sophy ; and we see to-day in Germany, in America, 
and in our own land, a species of Pantheism eagerly 
announced as the theology of the age, just as when, a 
hundred years ago, a new theology was needed, and a 
sensational philosophy prevailed, Unitarianism was em¬ 
braced as the system most accordant with such life as 
the times could boast. This illustration reveals much 
of the relation of Theology to Religion also, as will 
appear when we have spoken of that question ; and in 
both respects it is full of most concerning instruction 
for teachers at the present time. 

Theology being a science, it not only follows that it 
should be affected by every change in philosophy, in 
the manner we have noted, but also, as every science 
is, by the extension of human knowledge generally; 
questions continually rising respecting what was for¬ 
merly received without hesitation, and much that was 
considered to be indissolubly connected with it being 
removed to other departments of science, and investi¬ 
gated and classified by means of their laws. And this, 
which at first awakens the liveliest alarm and hostility, 


HIS PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 


11 


is afterwards discovered to be right; as has been the 
case with astronomy, and geology, and metaphysics, 
which, by the Schoolmen, and by others of later date 
than they, were included in the domain of this “ Queen 
of the Sciences.” But especially is Theology affected 
by every advance towards what Bacon designates plii- 
losophia prima; which in our days is called method. 
Aristotelian Logic was, and by a few still is, considered 
the legitimate organon of inquiry; but as theological 
science, like every other, is based upon facts, and ought 
to be cultivated so as to bear the soundest and most 
abundant fruitage, (to employ Bacon’s metaphor,) and 
this method can neither discover, nor invent, nor ap¬ 
ply, but only develop and prove; though it were fault¬ 
less, it must be as inadequate to explain the facts, and 
to direct the practice that should be grounded on them, 
in this science, as it is by all men known to be in phy¬ 
sics ; and the employment of it must be as unwise. 
The splendid organon of Lord Bacon, cleared of the 
obscurities which his own imperfect apprehension and 
incomplete treatment of it have occasioned, and cor¬ 
rected and rendered applicable by the aid of more 
recent labourers in the same wealthy field—this, by 
which every science that now adorns and blesses hu¬ 
man life has been constructed, must be resorted to; 
and then Theology, which has hitherto produced little 
beside darkness and strife in all our ways, shall fill her 
proper sphere, and, through her, Philosophy shall (as 
her great teacher prayed) bestow “ a largess of new 
alms upon the family of mankind.” 

The relation of Theology to Religion ranks only 
next in interest, at the present time, to the former 
question, and outstrips it in importance. Perhaps the 


12 


SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE: 


reason for the common denial of any relation of Philo¬ 
sophy to Theology arises from the circumstance that 
the latter is so frequently confounded with Religion. 
Now it is of the utmost moment that the distinction 
between them should be seen ; and it is so obvious that, 
when seen, it appears most wonderful that it should 
ever have been necessary to point it out. We have 
already, in effect, done so; but we repeat it that we 
may show how the confusion has arisen, and also more 
clearly exhibit the true relation of the one to the other. 
Religion, in such phrases as “ the Christian religion,” 
has a signification near akin tol Theology, being a little 
wider, as it includes the outward observances of devo¬ 
tion, &c.; and in those communities in which visible 
profession and observance are valued for their own 
sake, as in the Church of Rome, it signifies those ob¬ 
servances, and nothing more; but when so used, there 
is a tacit assumption that there is nothing else to be so 
entitled—that in these things the whole relation of man 
to God is fulfilled. We know, however, that these are 
of the smallest possible value in the fulfilment of that 
relation; and that it is by the allegiance and love of 
the heart spontaneously and truthfully rendered to 
God, by the aspiration after such oneness of spirit 
and will with him as may realize the being a child of 
God, that man takes his proper place in his sight; and 
to this aspiration and confidence and love we give the 
name Religion.} Constituted as man is, such a spiritual 
state cannot exist without being shared, according to 
its capability, by the intellect; for religion is the self- 
devotion of the whole man to God; and hence it arises 
that he is not only able, but constrained, to construct a 
systematic representation of the knowledge and expe- 


HIS PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 


13 


rience which lead to, and follow from, this self-devo¬ 
tion ; and such a representation is Theology. Religion, 
thus, is the material, Philosophy supplies the form and 
method, and the science Theology is the result ; in it 
Philosophy and Religion are wedded. But this is not 
the whole of the relation of which we now speak. All 
human science, worthy of the name, not only method¬ 
izes what is already known by man, but also furnishes 
him with the means of making new acquisitions in 
knowledge, and especially directs him in the practical 
application of it; theological science must needs have 
this scope, as a science ; and it has, moreover, from its 
peculiar character—its facts being those of the inner 
life—a most powerful influence in keeping that life at 
the level it represents, and. of producing harmony and 
consistency in its various manifestations and modes of 
activity. Herein lies the unspeakable worth, or the 
deadly danger, of Theology. If it do not embrace all 
the phenomena or facts of a man’s religion, what is left 
out is in great danger of being overlooked, and the life 
of becoming, in consequence, unsymmetrical and imper¬ 
fect. If it do not give to any of these facts its proper 
rank; if it exalt what is subordinate, and depress what 
ought to have pre-eminence ; there is the danger that, 
in the life, thenceforward, the same inversion should 
be displayed. If it do not aim at practice, there is the 
danger that, practically, religion should be divorced 
from the life, and become a mere speculation, or, worse 
still, a fanaticism, powerful only for evil. Such are 
the consequences, on the one hand, of the relation of 
Theology to Religion; those, on the other, are the 
harmonious culture, and constant advancement, and 
progressive development, of all that enters into this 


14 


SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE: 


spiritual and inward life, accompanied by such mani¬ 
festations of it, not only in devotional observances, but 
in all that makes up man’s life in time, as shall attest 
its character and source, and give to it a higher com¬ 
pleteness, and fit the subject of it in ever loftier ser¬ 
vices here to help forward the accomplishment of God’s 
great purpose respecting the world, as a “ living epistle 
of Christ, known and read of all men.” 

These are the questions respecting which we purpose 
to exhibit the kind of assistance that all who desire to 
become acquainted with matters of such infinite con¬ 
cern as are agitated now, and to find a means of safety 
and defence in these times of conflict and peril, and 
especially beginners in theological inquiry, may find in 
the writings of Coleridge. Our efforts have been di¬ 
rected simply to setting them, as questions, before our 
readers; for our space and our scope alike forbade any 
attempt to discuss them; and we have so treated of 
them as, if possible, to awaken reflection respecting 
them, and thus to lead away the thought from the 
subjects of lighter moment, to these, upon which if true 
conclusions are reached, there will be little difficulty, 
comparatively, in attaining the truth respecting the 
others. They have, in fact, been already proposed in 
Mr. Morell’s “Philosophy of Religion;” but will, we 
fear, have to be repeatedly urged upon both teachers 
and learners, and brought forward in various forms, be¬ 
fore they receive the attention they deserve; and by 
this consideration, as well as by those we have men¬ 
tioned before, we have been moved in our selection of 
them for our present purpose. 

It is not our intention on this occasion to speak of 
the Biography of Coleridge, rich though it is with 


HIS PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 15 

profound and varied instruction. Nor shall we regard 
him in his “ many-sidedness,” but simply as a Philo¬ 
sopher and a Theologian. Neither can we stay to no¬ 
tice all that has been or can be said to his disadvantage. 

© 

Much of it is irrelevant. The charge of plagiarism, 
one of the most vexatious attacks upon his name, has 
been well met, in the later editions of his works, by a 
minute and careful reference of all that even seems to 
be borrowed to the primary sources; the editor has 
shown her appreciation of the original wealth of her 
father’s mind, by thus acknowledging the full amount 
of what he appears to be indebted to others for; and 
we think that this accusation is effectually silenced. 
And much cancels itself, being self-destructive. Thus, 
if a party in the Church of England holds him to be 
the guilty source of John Sterling’s “ infidelity,” others, 
whose opinions are quite as weighty, regard him as the 
“father of the Puseyites.” The fact respecting his 
writings is, that he declares great truths and principles 
with sufficient boldness and clearness, but often fails 
completely in his deductions from them, and in his 
applications of them; as Bacon himself has failed in 
the practical illustration of his novum organon; and so 
it has fallen out, that men of most opposite schools and 
creeds, dwelling on the conclusions, and overlooking the 
principles; or on the truths, and overlooking the de¬ 
ductions from them; have claimed him as belonging to 
them. This we hold to be one excellence of his works 
for the purpose we have in view; which is not to en¬ 
force ready-made opinions, but to discipline the mind 
so that it may be able to form them for itself. 

For the same reason we consider it to be a great ad¬ 
vantage that Coleridge does not in any of his works 


16 


SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE: 


formally expound a system either of philosophy or of 
theology. That he had such systems every attentive 
reader of his writings can perceive, hut the whole habit 
of his mind forbade his undertaking the task of “ the 
practical architect, by whose skill a temple of faith, or 
a school for wisdom, should be reared.” He is rather, 
as a transatlantic writer has said of him, “ an inspired 
poet, an enthusiastic prophet of a spiritual philosophy 
or, more truly, treasures both of wisdom and faith lie 
dispersed through his books, like the wealth of nature 
in mine and mountain, in forest and plain, seemingly 
without plan or order, yet all really placed by the opera¬ 
tion of secret laws of most exquisite order, which reveal 
themselves only to the earnest student. -We shall not 
attempt to develop his systems, fo£ wo^do not recom¬ 
mend him as a master whose ipse dixit is to put an end 
to all controversy, and whose modes of thought are to 
be implicitly received and followed; but as a teacher 
of the art of reflection, whose ability is all the greater 
from this seeming desultoriness. 

One other remark we feel bound to make—but a 
few years back it was quite customary, even amongst 
thinking men, to speak of Coleridge’s metaphysics as 
deep and mysterious, as being, in their sense of the 
word, “ transcendental; ” but a total change has passed 
over this subject, and now what was so high and un¬ 
earthly as to be deemed fit only for cloud-land, is pro¬ 
nounced elementary, and fit for mere learners only. 
The truth, as ever, lies between these extremes; not 
elementary , as his present critics use the term, his phi¬ 
losophy most assuredly is; but at the same time not 
dark and mysterious, and verging upon the inane. And 
yet the men who have been most ready in the outset 


HIS PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 


17 


of tlieir studies to acknowledge their obligations to his 
works, when they have gained a deeper and wider 
acquaintance with their great themes, have wondered a 
little that they should ever think of them, as they 
well remember that they did. For Coleridge, as we 
have said, teaches no system, not even his own, and 
hence he cannot be such a constant companion, nor, for 
so long a time, the guide of those who are aiming at 
the loftiest heights of wisdom, as if he had done so, 
and driven his readers’ minds along his own line of re¬ 
flection, instead of inspiring them with the will and 
the power to construct and to move along lines of their 
own. All that he has written may, in short, be re¬ 
garded as propaideutick to the larger study of philo¬ 
sophy and theology, and as such alone we recommend 
it now. 

By way of confirming the opinions we have ex¬ 
pressed respecting the value of Coleridge’s works, we 
refer our readers to the “ Preliminary Essay,” which is 
contained in the second volume of the “ Aids to Reflec¬ 
tion,” written by the late Mr. James Marsh, President 
of the University of Vermont, in the United States; 
and subjoin the opinions of two other philosophical 
writers of the same country, which we happen to have 
lying before us. Kaufman, in the preface to his trans¬ 
lation of Bocksharhmer’s “ Treatise on the Will,” says, 
—“ Coleridge’s writings afford the best introduction to 
the study of German philosophy. lie had much of the 
German spirit, and often employs German terms. Yet 
lie was by no means bound to the Germans; for in¬ 
stead of translating their works, or retailing their spe¬ 
culations, he drew his thoughts from the depths and 
fulness of his own exhaustless mind.” And Ripley* 
c 


18 


SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE! 


in his “ Introductory Notice ” of Victor Cousin’s writ¬ 
ings, observes, that the works of our author are “ ex* 
ceedingly valuable to two classes of persons: to those 
on whom the light of spiritual truth is beginning to 
dawn, who are just awakened to the consciousness of 
the inward power of their nature, and who need to 
have the sentiment of religion quickened into more 
vital activity; and to those who have obtained, as the 
fruit of their own reflections, a living system of spi¬ 
ritual faith. The former will find the elements of con¬ 
genial truth profusely scattered over his pages; and 
the latter may construct out of their own experience a 
systematic whole with the massive fragments that are 
almost buried beneath the magnificent confusion of his 
style. But he cannot satisfy the mind whose primary 
want is philosophical clearness and precision.” The 
grateful dedication and preface prefixed by Archdeacon 
Hare to his “ Mission of the Comforter,” will be fresh 
in our readers’ memories, and may stand as the repre¬ 
sentative of the feelings with which his name is cher¬ 
ished by those in his own country who have proved 
themselves the best able to appreciate his worth. 

We shall confine our extracts, as far as possible, to 
the illustration of the two questions we have stated, but 
we must premise that we cannot always strictly do so; 
And we shall endeavour to prevent any passage from 
losing its force by appearing as a mere fragment; 
though, in general, no precaution of this kind will be 
required: his best work, as we esteem it, the “ Aids to 
Reflection,” from which we shall borrow most largely, 
being wholly of a fragmentary character; and his most 
thoroughly compacted writings consisting of series of 
essays, the connexion of which appears at times rather 


HIS PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 


19 


arbitrary. Much in these extracts, and in his philoso¬ 
phical and theological works, may not seem to throw 
any light directly on the matters now most eagerly 
controverted ; yet we know, from experience, that the 
principles and elements of truth to be learned from 
them, and the habits of thought cultivated by them, 
can and will lead to the discovery of what does most 
satisfactorily illuminate the darkest of these questions. 
It ought also to be mentioned, that very many of his 
thoughts have passed into general circulation, and, 
therefore, not all even of what we quote must be ex¬ 
pected to wear an air of novelty. 

The “ Aids to Reflection ” consists of a copious se¬ 
lection of passages from English theological writers of 
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and principally 
from Leighton, with comments, and so arranged as “ to 
establish the distinct characters of prudence, morality, 
and religion; ” “ to substantiate and set forth at large 
the momentous distinction between reason and under¬ 
standing ; ” and with this framework to afford, what 
Mr. Marsh designates, “ a philosophical statement and 
vindication of the distinctively spiritual and peculiar 
doctrines of the Christian system.” It would have been 
more satisfactory, had our space permitted it, to have 
shown how, in the principles laid down in this work, a 
safeguard from the errors of our day may be found, 
and a reply to the most prodigious of its false asser¬ 
tions. We are obliged, however, to restrict our em¬ 
ployment of it to quotations, which can only show the 
kind of assistance in reflection it can afford; and per¬ 
haps, also, which is of more moment, how, practically, 
philosophy subserves the great interests of religion 
through its bearing on theology. The difference be- 
c 2 


20 


SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE : 


tween “ reason ” and “ understanding,” of which Cole¬ 
ridge says—“Not only is it innocent in its possible 
influences on the religious character, but it is an indis¬ 
pensable preliminary to the removal of the most for¬ 
midable obstacles to an intelligent belief of the peculiar 
doctrines of the gospel, of the characteristic articles 
of the Christian faith, with which the advocates of 
the truth in Christ have to contend, the evil heart of 
unbelief alone excepted” (Aids, vol. i. p. 196)—this 
difference, which will appear clearly enough in some 
passages, must be borne in mind in reading them all, 
or the author’s meaning will not appear. 

We will begin with the distinction between Philo¬ 
sophy and Religion, which is so much kept out of sight, 
and so often overlooked, by writers and readers of the 
present day. 

“ Christianity alone both teaches the way, and provides 
the means, of fulfilling the obscure promises of this great 
instinct [of the natural relation of the heart to God] for all 
men, which the philosophy of boldest pretensions confined 
to the sacred few.”— Aids, vol. i. p. 97. 

“Herein the Bible differs from all the books of Greek 
philosophy, and in a twofold manner. It doth not affirm a 
Divine nature only, but a God: and not a God only, but 
the living God.” — Statestn. Man. p. 233. 

The following passage will conduct us from this dis¬ 
tinction to the relation between them:— 

“ By undeceiving, enlarging, and informing the intellect, 
Philosophy sought to purify and to elevate the moral cha¬ 
racter. Of course, those alone could receive the latter and 
incomparably greater benefit, who by natural capacity and 
favourable contingencies of fortune were fit recipients of 


HIS PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 


21 


the former. How small the number we scarcely need the 
evidence of history to assure us. Across the night of Pa¬ 
ganism Philosophy flitted on, like the lantern-fly of the 
tropics, a light to itself, and an ornament, but, alas! no 
more than an ornament, of the surrounding darkness. 

“ Christianity reversed the order. By means accessible 
to all, by inducements operative on all, and by convictions, 
the grounds and materials of which all men might find in 
themselves, her first step was to cleanse the heart. But the 
benefit did not stop here. In preventing the rank vapours 
that steam up from the corrupt heart, Christianity restores 
the intellect likewise to its natural clearness. By relieving 
the mind from the distractions and importunities of the un¬ 
ruly passions, she improves the quality of the understand¬ 
ing; while at the same time she presents for its contempla¬ 
tion objects so great and so bright as cannot but enlarge the 
organ by which they are contemplated. The fears, the 
hopes, the remembrances, the anticipations, the inward and 
outward experience, the belief and the faith, of a Christian, 
form of themselves a philosophy and a sum of knowledge, 
which a life spent in the Grove of Academus, or the Painted 
Porch, could not have attained or collected. The result is 
contained in the fact of a wide and still widening Christ¬ 
endom. 

“Yet I dare not say that the effects have been propor¬ 
tionate to the Divine wisdom of the scheme. Too soon did 
the doctors of the church forget that the heart, the moral 
nature, was the beginning and the end; and that truth, 
knowledge, and insight, were comprehended in its expan¬ 
sion. This was the true and first apostacy—when in council 
and synod the divine humanities of the gospel gave way to 
speculative systems, and religion became a science of sha¬ 
dows under the name of theology, or at best a bare skeleton 
of truth, without life or interest, alike inaccessible and un¬ 
intelligible to the majority of Christians. For these there¬ 
fore there remained only rites, and ceremonies, and specta¬ 
cles, shows, and semblances. Thus among the learned the 


22 


SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE : 


substance of things hoped for passed off into notions; and for 
the unlearned the surfaces of things became substance. 
The Christian world was for centuries divided into the 
many that did not think at all, and the few who did no¬ 
thing but think;—both alike unreflecting, the one from 
defect of the act, the other from the absence of an object.” 
— Aids, vol. i. pp. 146, 147* 

This, from the “Notes on the Pilgrim’s Progress,” 
embodies Coleridge’s view of the influence of Philosophy 
on Religion, through Theology:— 

“If by metaphysics we mean those truths of the pure 
reason which always transcend, and not seldom appear to 
contradict, the understanding; or (in the words of the great 
apostle) spiritual verities which can only be spiritually dis¬ 
cerned—and this is the true and legitimate meaning of 
metaphysics; then I affirm that this very controversy be¬ 
tween the Arminians and the Calvinists, in which both are 
partially right in what they affirm, and both wholly wrong 
in what they deny, is a proof that without metaphysics 
there can be no light of faith.”— Lit. Rem. vol. iii. p. 403. 

Elsewhere he says:— 

“ A hunger-bitten and idea-less philosophy naturally pro¬ 
duces a starveling and comfortless religion.”— Statesm. Man . 
p. 230. 

And— 

“ To the immense majority of men, even in civilized 
countries, speculative philosophy has ever been, and must 
ever remain, a terra incognita. Yet it is not the less true, 
that all the epoch-forming revolutions of the Christian 
world, the revolutions of religion, and with them the civil, 
social, and domestic habits of the nations concerned, have 


HIS PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 


23 


coincided with the rise and fall of metaphysical systems.”— 

lb. p. 215. 

In another remark he touches a deeper point in the 
relation between the subjects of which we speak:— 

“ The same principle, which in its application to the 
whole of our being becomes religion, considered specula¬ 
tively, is the basis of metaphysical science; that, namely, 
which requires an evidence beyond that of sensible con¬ 
cretes.”— Friend , vol. iii. pp. 9 7, 98. 

And thus he states the scope of his writings:— 

“ This has been my object, and this alone can be my 
defence, .... the unquenched desire, not without the con¬ 
sciousness of having earnestly endeavoured to kindle young 
minds, and to guard them against the temptations of 
scorners, by showing that the scheme of Christianity, .... 
though not discoverable by human reason, is yet in accord¬ 
ance with it; that link follows link by necessary conse¬ 
quence ; that Religion passes out of the ken of Reason 
only where the eye of Reason has reached its own horizon; 
and that Faith is then but its continuation: even as the 
day softens away into the sweet twilight; and twilight, 
hushed and breathless, steals into the darkness.”— Biog. 
Lit. vol. ii. pp. 308, 309. 

But we may spare our readers some embarrassment, 
by giving the following eloquent passage, in which the 
most distinctive characteristics of Coleridge’s philo¬ 
sophy are clearly indicated:— 

God created man in his own image. To be the image of 
his own eternity created he man! Of eternity and self-exist¬ 
ence what other likeness is possible, but immortality and 
moral self-determination ? In addition to sensation, percep- 


24 


SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE: 


tion, and practical judgment—instinctive or acquirable— 
concerning the notices furnished by the organs of percep¬ 
tion, all which, in kind at least, the dog possesses in com¬ 
mon with his master; in addition to these, God gave us 
reason, and with reason he gave us reflective self-conscious¬ 
ness ; gave us principles, distinguished from the maxims 
and generalizations of outward experience by their absolute 
and essential universality and necessity; and, above all, by 
superadding to reason the mysterious faculty of free-will 
and consequent personal amenability, he gave us conscience 
—that law of conscience, which in the power, and as the 
indwelling word, of a holy and omnipotent legislator, com¬ 
mands us, from among the numerous ideas, mathematical 
and philosophical, which the reason, by the necessity of its 
own excellence, creates for itself—unconditionally com¬ 
mands us to attribute reality and actual existence to those 
ideas, and to those only, without which the conscience 
itself would be baseless and contradictory, to the ideas of 
soul, of free-will, of immortality, and of God. To God, as 
the reality of the conscience, and the source of all obliga¬ 
tion ; to free-will, as the power of the human being to 
maintain its obedience which God, through the conscience, 
has commanded, against all the might of nature; and to 
the immortality of the soul, as a state in which the weal 
and woe of man shall be proportioned to his moral worth. 
With this faith all nature, 

-all the mighty world 

Of eye and ear--- 

presents itself to us, now as the aggregated material of duty, 
and now as a vision of the Most High, revealing to us the 
mode, the time, and particular instance, of applying and 
realizing that universal rule pre-established in the heart of 
our reason.”— Friend, vol. i. pp. 146—148. 

And this, which is of a more strictly scientific tone:— 




HIS PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 


25 


“ The spirit of man, or the spiritual part of our being, is 
the intelligent will; or (to speak less abstractly) it is the 
capability with which the Father of spirits hath endowed 
man, of being determined to action by the ultimate ends 
which the reason alone can present. The understandings 
which derives all its materials from the senses, can dictate 
purposes only; that is, such ends as are in their turn means 
to other ends. The ultimate ends, by which the will is to 
be determined, and by which alone the will, not corrupted, 
the spirit made perfect , would be determined, are called, in 
relation to the reason, moral ideas. Such are the ideas of 
the eternal, the good, the true, the holy, the idea of God as 
the absoluteness and reality (or real ground) of all these, 
or as the Supreme Spirit in which all these substantially 
are, and are one; lastly, the idea of the responsible will 
itself—of duty, of guilt, or evil in itself without reference 
to its outward and separable consequences.”— Ch. and State , 
pp. 133, 134. 

In the following extracts the student will find mate¬ 
rial for thought, not merely respecting the general re¬ 
lations of Philosophy to Theology and Religion, but 
specifically respecting the method he should pursue in 
his investigation. How these views are connected with, 
and spring from, a spiritual philosophy, will appear, 
if the passage quoted last but one be attentively re¬ 
perused. 

Our author, in his discussion of the doctrine of elec- 

. 

tion, says:— 

« The following may, I think, be taken as a safe and use¬ 
ful rule in religious inquiries. Ideas, that derive their origin 
and substance from the moral being, and to the reception 
of which as true objectively, (that is, as corresponding to a 
reality out of the human mind,) we are determined by a 
practical interest exclusively, may not, like theoretical posi- 


26 


SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE I 


tions, be pressed onward into all their logical consequences. 
The law of conscience, and not the canons of discursive 
reasoning, must decide in such cases; at least, the latter 
have no validity which the single veto of the former is not 
sufficient to nullify. The most pious conclusion is here the 
most legitimate. 

“It is too seldom considered, though most worthy of 
consideration, how far those ideas or theories of pure 
speculation, which bear the same name with the objects of 
religious faith, are indeed the same. Out of the principles 
necessarily presumed in all discursive thinking, and which 
being in the first place universal, and secondly, antecedent 
to every particular exercise of the understanding, are there¬ 
fore referred to the reason,—the human mind (wherever 
its powers are sufficiently developed, and its attention 
strongly directed to speculative or theoretical inquiries) 
forms certain essences, to which, for its own purposes, it 
gives a sort of notional subsistence.”— Aids , vol. i. pp. 
124, 125. 

After various illustrations of the need of watchful¬ 
ness against the danger pointed out in the last para¬ 
graph, Coleridge re-states his view of the part to be 
taken by human reason, for the purpose of providing 
“ a safety-lamp for religious inquirers.” 

“ This,” he says, “ I find in the principle, that all re¬ 
vealed truths are to be judged of by us, so far only as they 
are possible subjects of human conception, or grounds of 
practice, or in some way connected with our moral and 
spiritual interests. In order to have a reason for forming 
a judgment on any given article, we must be sure that we 
possess a reason by, and according to which, such a judg¬ 
ment may be formed. Now in respect of all truths to which 
a real independent existence is assigned, and which yet are 
not contained in, or to be imagined under, any form of space 


HIS PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 27 

or time, it is strictly demonstrable that the human reason, 
considered abstractly as the source of positive science and 
theoretical insight, is not such a reason. At the utmost, it 
has only a negative voice. In other words, nothing can be 
allowed as true for the human mind which directly contra¬ 
dicts this reason. But even here, before we admit the ex¬ 
istence of any such contradiction, we must be careful to 
ascertain that there is no equivocation in play, that two 
different subjects are not confounded under one and the 

same word.But if not the abstract or speculative 

reason, and yet a reason there must be in order to a ra¬ 
tional * belief, then it must be the practical reason of man, 
comprehending the will, the conscience, the moral being, 
with its inseparable interests and affections; that reason, 
namely, which is the organ of wisdom, and, as far as man 
is concerned, the source of living and actual truths.” — lb. 
pp. 132, 133. 

Illustrations of the position, that every doctrine is 
to be interpreted in reference to those who know, or 
might know it, follow ; and the essay concludes thus:— 

“ Do I then utterly exclude the speculative reason from 
theology? No. It is its office and rightful privilege to de¬ 
termine on the negative truth of whatever we are required 
to believe. The doctrine must not contradict any universal 
principle, for this would be a doctrine that contradicted it¬ 
self. Or philosophy ? No. It may be, and has been the 
servant and pioneer of faith, by convincing the mind that a 

* We append one of the eaidiest aphorisms in the “ Aids to 
Reflection,” to prevent any mistake respecting Coleridge’s use 
of this word. “ The word rational has been strangely abused of 
late times. This must not, however, disincline us to the weighty 
consideration, that thoughtfulness, and a desire to bottom all our 
convictions on grounds of right reason, are inseparable from the 
character of a Christian.”— Aph. xvi. p. 9. 



28 


SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE! 


doctrine is cogitable, that the soul can present the idea to 
itself, and that, if we determine to contemplate, or think 
of, the subject at all, so, and in no other form, can this be 
effected. So far are both logic and philosophy to be re¬ 
ceived and trusted. But the duty, and in some cases, and 
for some persons, even the right, of thinking on subjects 
beyond the bounds of sensible experience, the ground of 
real truth, the life, the substance, the hope, the love, in one 
word, the faith; these are derivatives from the practical, 
moral, and spiritual nature and being of man.”— lb. p. 142. 

Amongst the “ Notes on Leighton,” not contained in 
the “ Aids to Reflection,” is one upon the consequences 
logically deducible from his Calvinistic doctrines, and 
which are so frequently regarded as conclusive against 
the reception of those doctrines. In it some of the 
thoughts we have seen in the preceding passages are 
thus expressed:— 

- “ The consequences appear to me, in point of logic, 
legitimately concluded from the terms of the premises. 
What shall we say then? Where lies the fault? In the 
original doctrines expressed in the premises ? God forbid. 
In the particular deductions, logically considered ? But 
these we have found legitimate. Where then ? I answer, 
in deducing any consequences by such a process, and ac¬ 
cording to such rules. The rules are alien and inapplica¬ 
ble; the process presumptuous, yea, preposterous. The 
error lies in the false assumption of a logical deducibility 
at all in this instance. First, because the terms from which 
the conclusion must be drawn are accommodations, and 
not scientific.Secondly, because the truths in ques¬ 

tion are transcendant, and have their evidence, if any, in 
the ideas themselves, and for the reason; and do not, and 
cannot, derive it from the conceptions of the understand¬ 
ing, which cannot comprehend the truths, but is to be com- 



HIS PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 


29 


prehended in and by them. Lastly, and chiefly, because 
these truths, as they do not originate in the intellective 
faculty of man, so neither are they addressed primarily to 
our intellect, but are substantiated for us by their cor¬ 
respondence to the wants, cravings, and interests of the 
moral being, for w hich they w r ere given, and without which 
they would be devoid of all meaning. The only conclu¬ 
sions, therefore, that can be drawn from them, must be 
such as are implied in the origin and purpose of their 
revelation; and the legitimacy of all conclusions must be 
tried by their consistency with those moral interests, those 
spiritual necessities, which are the proper final cause of the 
truths, and of our faith therein. For some of the faithful 
these truths have, I doubt not, an evidence of reason; but 
for the whole household of faith their certainty is in their 
working.”— Lit. Rem. vol. iv. pp. 158, 159. 

For the development of the method by which Cole¬ 
ridge would construct his theology, we must refer 
the reader to his “ Essay on the Science of Method,” 
which was written as the general introduction to the 
“ Encyclopaedia Metropolitana,” and is republished as a 
separate volume, in the edition of that costly work now 
in progress; or to the third volume of the “ Friend,” 
in which most of the matter of that essay will be 
found, with other illustrations and applications. Of it 
we can only say, that he preceded Whewell in the re¬ 
presentation of the Baconian system of induction, which 
forms the groundwork of that author’s “ Philosophy of 
the Inductive Sciences.” 

In the last extract may be discerned Coleridge’s view 
of the evidences of Christianity; and on this subject, 
which is so intimately connected with his philosophy, 
and is of such moment in its relation to existing con¬ 
troversies, we must insert a few passages which will 


30 


SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE : 


indicate the position he took up. Here is one, which 
expresses a fear that has, in fact, been realized, though 
not exactly in the way which the writer expected. 

“ I more than fear the prevailing taste for books of na¬ 
tural theology, physico-theology, demonstrations of God 
from nature, evidences of Christianity, and the like. Evi¬ 
dences of Christianity ! I am weary of the word. Make a 
man feel the want of it; rouse him, if you can, to the self- 
knowledge of his need of it; and you may safely trust it to 
its own evidence—remembering only the express declara¬ 
tion of Christ himself, No man cometh to me unless the Fa¬ 
ther leadeth him. Whatever more is desirable—I speak now 
with reference to Christians generally, and not to professed 
students of theology—may, in my judgment, be far more 
safely and profitably taught, without controversy or the 
supposition of infidel antagonists, in the form of ecclesias¬ 
tical history.”— Aids, vol. i. pp. 333, 334. 

Speaking of some who exalted what they called 
<(f the religion of nature,” because free from mystery; 
and who argued that the mysteries of Christianity 
were sufficient to disprove its claims upon the hearts of 
men, he says:— 

“ I would disturb no man’s faith in the great articles of 
the (falsely so called) religion of nature. But before a man 
rejects, and calls on other men to reject, the revelations of 
the Gospel and the religion of all Christendom, I would 
have him place himself in the state and under all the pri¬ 
vations of a Simonides, when in the fortieth day of his 
meditation the sage and philosophic poet abandoned the 

problem in despair.Yes! in prevention (for there is 

little chance, I fear, of a cure) of the pugnacious dogmatism 
of partial reflection, I would prescribe to every man who 
feels a commencing alienation from the Catholic faith, and 
whose studies and attainments authorize him to argue on 



HIS PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 


31 


the subject at all, a patient and thoughtful perusal of the 
arguments and representations which Bayle supposes to 
have passed through the mind of Simonides. Or I should 
be satisfied if I could induce these eschewers of mystery to 
give a patient, manly, and impartial perusal to the single 
treatise of Pomponatius Be Fato . When they have fairly 
and satisfactorily overthrown the objections, and cleared 
away the difficulties urged by this sharp-witted Italian 
against the doctrines which they profess to retain, then let 
them commence their attack on those which they reject. 
As far as the supposed irrationality of the latter is the 
ground of argument, I am much deceived if, on reviewing 
their forces, they would not find the ranks woefully thinned 
by the success of their own fire in the preceding engage¬ 
ment—unless, indeed, by pure heat of controversy, and to 
storm the lines of their antagonists, they can bring to life 
again the arguments which they had themselves killed off 
in the defence of their own positions.”— lb. pp. 187, 188. 

The following statement occurs amongst the “ Lite¬ 
rary Remains,” and was communicated by the friend 
to whom Coleridge dictated it. It is entitled “ Evi¬ 
dences of Christianity ,” and the illustration it affords 
of the light cast by such a philosophy as that held by 
our author, on these questions, entitles it to a place 
here; as well as its intrinsic value in reference to the 
subjects of which it treats. 

“ I. Miracles—as precluding the contrary evidence of no 
miracles. 

“ II. The material of Christianity, its existence and his¬ 
tory. 

“ HI. The doctrines of Christianity, and the correspond¬ 
ence of human nature to those doctrines,—illustrated, 1st, 
historically, .... —2nd, individually—from its appeal for 
its truth to an asserted fact,—which, whether it be real or 


32 


SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE: 


not, every man possessing reason has an equal power of 
ascertaining within himself;— namely, a will which has 
more or less lost its freedom, though not the consciousness 
that it ought to be, and may become, free ;—the conviction 
that this cannot be achieved, without the operation of a 
principle connatural with itself;—the evident rationality of 
an entire confidence in that principle being the condition 
and means of its operationthe experience in his own 
nature of the truth of the process described by Scripture as 
far as he can place himself within the process, aided by the 
confident assurances of others as to the effects experienced 
by them, and which he is striving to arrive at. All these 
form a practical Christian. Add, however, a gradual open¬ 
ing out of the intellect to more and more clear perceptions 
of the strict coincidence of the doctrines of Christianity, 
with the truths evolved by the mind, from reflections on its 
own nature. To such a man one main test of the object¬ 
ivity, the entity, the objective truth of his faith, is its ac¬ 
companiment by an increase of insight into the moral 
beauty and necessity of the process which it comprises, and 
the dependence of that proof on the causes asserted. Be¬ 
lieve, and if thy belief be right, that insight which gradually 
transmutes faith into knowledge will be the reward of that 
belief. .... 3rd, In the above I include the increasing 
discoveries in the correspondence of the history, the doc¬ 
trines, and the promises of Christianity, with the past, pre¬ 
sent, and probable future of human nature; and in this 
state a fair comparison of the religion as a Divine philo¬ 
sophy, with all other religions which have pretended to 
revelations, and all other systems of philosophy ; both with 
regard to the totality of its truth and its identification with' 
the manifest march of afiairs. 

“I should conclude that, if we suppose a man to have 
convinced himself that not only the doctrines of Chris¬ 
tianity, which may be conceived independently of history 
or time, as the Trinity, spiritual influences, &c., are coinci¬ 
dent with the truths which his reason, thus strengthened, 



HIS PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 


33 


has evolved from its own sources; but that the historical 
dogmas, namely, of the incarnation of the creative Logos, 
and his becoming a personal agent, are themselves founded 
in philosophical necessity; then it seems irrational, that 
such a man should reject the belief of the actual appearance 
of a religion strictly correspondent therewith, at a given 
time recorded, even as much as that he should reject Caesar’s 
account of his wars in Gaul, after he has convinced himself 
a priori of their probability. As the result of these convic¬ 
tions, he will not scruple to receive the particular miracles 
recorded, inasmuch as it would be miraculous that an in¬ 
carnated God should not work what must to mere men ap¬ 
pear as miracles ; inasmuch as it is strictly accordant with 
the ends and benevolent nature of such a Being, to com¬ 
mence the elevation of man above his mere senses by at¬ 
tracting and enforcing attention, first through an appeal to 
those senses. But with equal reason will he expect that 
no other or greater force should be laid on these miracles 
as such; that they should not be spoken of as good in 
themselves, much less as the adequate and ultimate proof 
of that religion; and likewise he will receive additional 
satisfaction, should he find these miracles so wrought, and 
on such occasions, as to give them a personal value as 
symbols of important truths when their miraculousness was 
no longer needful or efficacious.” 3fisc. Pieces, with Conf. 
Jnq. Sp. pp. 186—190; or Lit. Rem. vol. i. pp. 386—389. 

The whole is admirably summed up in these few 
words :— 

“ The truth revealed through Christ has its evidence in 
itself, and the proof of its Divine authority in its fitness to 
our nature and needs; the clearness and cogency of this 
proof being proportionate to the degree of self-knowledge 
in each individual hearer. Christianity has likewise its 
historical evidences, and these as strong as is compatible 

D 


34 


SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE: 


with the nature of history, and with the aims and objects 
of a religious dispensation. And to all these Christianity 
itself, as an existing power in the world, and Christendom 
as an existing fact, with the no less evident fact of a pro¬ 
gressive expansion, give a force of moral demonstration 
that almost supersedes particular testimony.” Conf. Inq. 
Sp. p. 63. 

After the aphorism containing the “ tenets peculiar to 
Christianity,” Coleridge supposes the questions, “ How 
can I comprehend this ? How is this to be proved ? ” 
to be asked, and replies in this manner:— 

“To the first question I answer: Christianity is not a 
theory, or a speculation, but a life; not a philosophy of 
life, but a life and a living process. To the second, Try it. 
It has been eighteen hundred years in existence, and has 
. one individual left a record like the following ?—‘ I tried it, 
and it did not answer.’ .... Have you, in your own ex¬ 
perience, met with any one in whose words you could place 
full confidence, and who has seriously affirmed, ‘I have 

given Christianity a fair trial.Yet my assurance of 

its truth has received no increase. Its promises have not 
been fulfilled, and I repent of my delusion ? ’ If neither 
your own experience, nor the history of almost two thou¬ 
sand years, has presented a single testimony to this pur¬ 
port ; and if you have heard and read of many who have 
lived and died bearing witness to the contrary ; and if you 
have yourself met with some one, in whom on any other 
point you would place unqualified trust, who has on his 
own experience made report to you that he is faithful who 
promised, and what he promised he has proved himself able 
to perform; is it bigotry, if I fear that the unbelief which 
prejudges and prevents the experiment, has its source else¬ 
where than in the uncorrupted judgment—that not the 



HIS PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 


35 


strong free mind, but the enslaved will, is the true original 
infidel in this instance?”— Aids, vol. i. pp. 157, 158. 

Between this and our next quotation is the essay on 
“ The Difference in Kind between Reason and Under¬ 
standing,” which, to such as are unacquainted with the 
fundamental proposition of the new and spiritual phi¬ 
losophy, is as good an introduction to it as may be 
found, and is not wholly without value to others. The 
following occurs in the “Reflections,” by which the 
aphorism and its comment, discussing the doctrine of 
“ Original Sin,” are introduced :— 

“ The practical inquirer hath already placed his foot on 
the rock, if he have satisfied himself that whoever needs 
not a Redeemer is more than human. Remove from him 
the difficulties and objections that oppose or perplex his 
belief of a crucified Saviour; convince him of the reality of 
sin, which is impossible without a knowledge of its true 
nature and inevitable consequences ; and then satisfy him 
as to the fact historically, and as to the truth spiritually, of 
a redemption therefrom by Christ; do this for him, and 
there is little fear that he will permit either logical quirks 
or metaphysical puzzles to contravene the plain dictate of 
his common sense, that the sinless one who redeemed man¬ 
kind from sin must have been more than man, and that He 
who brought light and immortality into the world could 
not, in his own nature, have been an inheritor of death and 
darkness. It is morally impossible that a man with these 
convictions should suffer the objection of incomprehensi¬ 
bility, and this on a subject of faith, to overbalance the 
manifest absurdity and contradiction in the notion of a 
Mediator between God and the human race, at the same 
infinite distance from God as the race for whom he medi¬ 
ates.”— lb. pp. 201, 202. 


36 


SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE: 


This passage has an immediate bearing upon some 
of the most thorny and fruitless speculations which now 
occasion such distress to those who would fain be firmly 
grounded in the truth. How many would have been 
kept from wandering in the trackless desert of doubt, 
where the only hope is a mirage, and the sand-storms 
ever threaten to overwhelm, had they received such 
guidance as it can afford, at the time when they first 
discovered that the broad, beaten path they had pur¬ 
sued could not lead them to the goal they desired! 
And how many fatal mistakes would have been pre¬ 
vented, had every earnest inquirer been directed at the 
outset of his career by such a view of Christianity as 
is contained in the following paragraph !— 

“ Christianity is fact no less than truth. It is spiritual, 
yet so as to be historical; and between these two poles 
there must likewise be a mid-point, in which the historical 
and spiritual meet. Christianity must have its history—a 
history of itself, and likewise the history of its introduction, 
its spread, and its outward becoming; and, as the mid-point 
above-mentioned, a portion of these facts must be mira¬ 
culous, that is , phenomena in nature that are beyond nature. 
Furthermore, the history of all historical nations must in 
some sense be its history;—in other words, all history must 
be providential, and this a providence, a preparation, and a 
looking forward to Christ.”— Conf. Inq. Sj). p. 7. 

The essays on “ Original Sin ” and “ Redemption,” 
in the “ Aids to Reflection,” are too long for quotation, 
and we could not do them justice, either by abstracts 
or extracts. We can only point them out, and particu¬ 
larly the latter, to our readers, as deserving most care¬ 
ful study, and as calculated, not merely to correct, but 





HIS PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 


37 


still more cogently to preclude the possibility of such 
bewildering errors as we know not a few in these 
times, with the very best intentions of discovering and 
holding only the truth, to have fallen into. One aphorism 
only we will append to this paragraph, as a specimen 
of the way in which this philosophy expresses itself on 
a question of practical Religion. And respecting these 
essays, and, indeed, respecting Coleridge’s theological 
writings generally, the fact that he, who was intimately 
familiar with the philosophy whence the objections 
that are now deemed most weighty have arisen, and 
with the divines of the best ages of our English school; 
and who, moreover, though a Churchman, was by no 
means enslaved to the prejudices of the Church,—for he 
did not shrink from the investigation of the most daring 
speculations respecting the faith, and he spoke with 
honest admiration of Cromwell and Bunyan, and with 
as honest reprobation of Charles and Laud,—the fact 
that Coleridge treats with such reverence, and avows 
with such heartiness his belief in, the truths that are 
now so pertinaciously impugned, ought to influence the 
feelings, though not the judgment, of any who are de¬ 
voutly seeking a well-founded assurance respecting the 
Gospel of Christ. 

“ Stedfast by faith. This is absolutely necessary for re¬ 
sistance to the evil principle. There is no standing out 
without some firm ground to stand on : and this faith alone 
supplies. By faith in the love of Christ the power of God 
becomes ours. When the soul is beleaguered by enemies, 
weakness on the walls, treachery at the gates, and corrup¬ 
tion in the citadel, then by faith she says—Lamb of God 
slain from the foundation of the world! Thou art my 


38 


SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE: 


strength! I look to Thee for deliverance!—And thus she 
overcomes. The pollution ( miasma ) of sin is precipitated 
by his blood, the power of sin is conquered by his Spirit. 
The apostle says not—stedfast by your own resolutions and 
purposes ; but— stedfast by faith. Nor yet stedfast in your 
will, but stedfast in the faith. We are not to be looking to, 
or brooding over, ourselves, either for accusation or for 
confidence, or (by a deep yet too frequent self-delusion) to 
obtain the latter by making a merit to ourselves of the 
former. But we are to look to Christ and him crucified. 
The law that is very nigh to thee, even in thy heart: the law 
that condemneth and hath no promise; that stoppeth the 
guilty past in its swift flight, and maketh it disown its 
name; the law will accuse thee enough. Linger not in the 
justice-court listening to thy indictment. Loiter not in 
waiting to hear the sentence. No, anticipate the verdict. 
Appeal to Csesar. Haste to the king for a pardon. Struggle 
thitherward, though in fetters; and cry aloud, and collect 
the whole remaining strength of thy will in the outcry —I 
believe ; Lord, help my unbelief! Disclaim all right of pro¬ 
perty in thy fetters. Say that they belong to the old man, 
and that thou dost but carry them to the grave, to be buried 
with their owner! Fix thy thought on what Christ did, 
what Christ suffered, what Christ is—as if thou wouldst 
fill the hollowness of thy soul with Christ. If he emptied 
himself of glory to become sin for thy salvation, must not 
thou be emptied of thy sinful self to become righteousness 
in and through his agony and the effective merits of his 
cross? By what other means, in what other form, is it 
possible for thee to stand in the presence of the Holy One ? 
With what mind wouldst thou come before God, if not with 
the mind of Him, in whom alone God loveth the world ? 
With good advice, perhaps, and a little assistance, thou 
wouldst rather cleanse and patch up a mind of thy own, 
and offer it as thy admission-right, thy qualification, to Him 
who charged his angels with folly ! Oh! take counsel with 


Ills PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 


39 


thy reason. It will show thee how impossible it is that 
even a world should merit the love of eternal wisdom and 
all-sufficing beatitude, otherwise than as it is contained in 
that all-perfect Idea, in which the Supreme Spirit con tem¬ 
plate th himself and the plenitude of his infinity—the Only- 
Begotten before all ages, the beloved Son, in whom the Father 
is indeed well pleased ! 

“ And as the mind, so the body with which it is to be 
clothed; as the indweller, so the house in which it is to be 
the abiding-place. There is but one wedding-garment, in 
which we can sit down at the marriage-feast of heaven; 
and that is the Bridegroom’s own gift, when he gave him¬ 
self for us, that we might live to him and he in us. There 
is but one robe of righteousness, even the spiritual body, 
formed by the assimilative power of faith, for whoever eat- 
eth the flesh of the Son of man, and drinketh his blood. 
Did Christ come from heaven, did the Son of God leave 
the glory which he had ivith his Father before the world began , 
only to show us a way to life, to teach truths, to tell us of 
a resurrection ? Or saith he not, I am the way—I am the 
truth—I am the resurrection and the life?” — Aids, vol. i. 
pp. 250—255. 

We have not thought it needful to say a word in 
vindication of any proposition, either in Philosophy or 
Theology, which we have quoted, or which we know 
Coleridge to have laid down, for we have not recom¬ 
mended him as any other than a teacher of the art of 
thinking to good purpose on the great themes which 
he discusses; and any introduction of polemical dis¬ 
quisition would have detracted from the force of that 
recommendation. It will be an augury of the highest 
hope and promise, that men shall be able to do as 
Locke counselled in the passage from his Journal we 
have given above; and shall thankfully welcome, and 


40 


SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE: 


diligently use, help from any hand in their arduous 
quest of truth; but suffer no hand, under the pretext 
of giving help, to lay fetters upon their souls, or to 
stop them in their high undertaking. 

One of the characteristic features of our days appears 
to be this,—that the discussion of religious, or rather 
of theological questions, is so much in the hands of 
non-professional men. Coleridge was not a cleric. The 
audacious assumptions of authority were revived in the 
Anglican Church by a “ layman ; ” and they who have 
broached the most audacious denials in the name of 
reason, have been unconnected with any ministry. We 
do not undervalue a theological training; but we are 
deeply persuaded that both Theology and Religion have 
suffered from the professional cast of the minds that 
have hitherto been most forward in teaching and vindi¬ 
cating them. The world is so much larger than the 
cloistered student wots of, and the interests of every¬ 
day life are so varied, and far-reaching, and compli¬ 
cated, that it is no wonder if truths, in themselves the 
most momentous, and which ought of all to be the most 
universally influential, when treated of by such as know 
nothing of these common human affairs, should seem to 
be mere impertinences, and come to be regarded as 
having no relation whatever to the engagements that 
claim the greatest part both of the time and the thoughts 
of practical men. That non-professional minds should 
be engaged upon these subjects, is surely a hopeful 
sign. The impulse given to physical and moral studies 
by the educated common sense of those who have joined 
in the pursuit of them; and the stagnant and chaotic 
condition of the two great branches of knowledge, 


HIS PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 


41 


which, having been ranked with theology as “ profes¬ 
sions,” have not shared this impulse—medicine and 
law—alike declare to us the vast benefits which may 
be expected, in the end, from these voluntary labours, 
and one cause, at least, of the present condition of 
the noblest of all sciences. Many a year may come 
and go before all we long to see accomplished will 
be brought to pass; but not bating “a jot of heart 
or hope,” we will watch for and hail every token that 
the time draws near, and strive, as now, to enlist the 
hearts and minds of those who best can aid, in such 
services as must effectually hasten the advent of the 
reign of God’s truth alone amongst men. 


THE END. 


JOHN CHILDS AND SON, BUNGAY 






































































































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